Aircraft are being designed and manufactured with greater and greater percentages of composite materials. For example, composite materials are used in aircraft to decrease the weight of the aircraft. This decreased weight improves performance features such as payload capacity and fuel efficiency. Further, composite materials provide longer service life for various components in an aircraft.
Composite materials are tough, light-weight materials created by combining two or more functional components. For example, a composite material includes reinforcing fibers bound in a polymer resin matrix. Resins used in composite materials include thermoplastic or thermoset resins. The fibers may be unidirectional or may take the form of a woven cloth or fabric.
In manufacturing composite structures, layers of composite material are typically laid up on a tool. The layers include fibers in sheets. These sheets may take the form of fabrics, tape, tows, or other suitable forms. In some cases, resin is infused or preimpregnated into the sheets. These types of sheets are commonly referred to as prepreg. The different layers of prepreg may be laid up in different orientations, and different numbers of layers are used depending on the performance requirements of the composite structure being manufactured.
Some types of structures are currently being laid up manually. As one example, some currently available composite structures for aircraft are laid up manually by human operators. However, building a composite structure manually can be more time-consuming than desired. Further, this type of manual assembly process can be more complex than desired. Still further, manually laying up composite structures may not provide the level of quality and consistency desired for composite structures.
Consequently, it may be desirable to automate portions of the assembly process using robotic systems. However, using conventional robotic systems to lay up some composite structures may be more difficult than desired. Currently available methods and systems for using robotic systems to lay up composite material may not provide the level of quality or consistency that is desired.